Monday 17 May 2010

Therapeutic Relationships - Part II

The title of my first article was just "Therapeutic Relationships", and in the plural, and I described the oxymoronic or very cold reductionism of the compound term, whilst acknowledging the constructive, creative, flexible, and fluid uses or applications of it.

The term "therapeutic relationship" also makes sense if it means "a sexual love-relationship between therapists"; if the client is worthy of being called "a therapist"; if what is being described is a "friendship-relationship" between therapist and client; or if sexual love-relationships and other relationships are indeed therapeutic.

Such relationships between real therapists, may be a genuine sexual love-relationship, or it might just mean a "work relationship" which has been coerced or forced into a sexual love-relationship; perhaps out of some professional jealousy, ignorance, prejudice, and discrimination. It's also very hard to understand any kind of relationship, if in some ways we don't look at the power-relations, or the type of language and overlapping terms and behaviours.

It seems to me that if "therapeutic relationship" is simply blurred or merged as a compound term, or split and fragmented too much in terms of ideas, terms, or categories, then it reduces and validates both the therapy as a unique or very valid therapy, and it reduces or invalidates any unique or very human kind of friendship and/or love-relationship that may be possible or feasible.

I also see no problem with calling the therapeutic-and-client relatedness a contract, and I don't see a short or long-term friendship or love-contract as a cold or rigid term. If "contract" was a cold term, then people wouldn't use it in context of a love-relationship, and in any case, marriage is a love-contract, but not a very authentic one in my opinion.

I met a therapist in a pub, and I her told was giving up alcohol. The pub therapist asked me the question "How would you describe the beer if it were a person? Would you describe it in terms of a brother?, sister?, father?, or mother?"- as if I had to describe my so-called "relationship" with beer, in one way only, in one term only, and with that cold reductionism and very orthodox Freudianism, suggesting that the beer was a father or mother to me.

The pub therapist's response may have been linked to some jealousy and ignorance about the unique way of relating I have with my friends, mental health professionals, and how I interpersonally and socially relate. On the other hand, I think that the nature of the pub therapist's questioning and way of relating on that occasion, was also due to some male-repression that was being used against her - pressurising her with that very male-dominated rational-reductionism; which is not at all typical of her way of feeling, thinking, and relating. It was also most probably also due to some dogmatic political control of her very unique methods and ideas; which I think other people don't really understand about her.

Why should anyone control, coerce, or tell us how to relate?, especially if the way we're relating is individually or socially unique, and can only really be understood by ourselves as individuals or between us? The control of relatedness can also be due to the very masculine and chauvinistic nature political dogmas, and can be part of far-right and extreme-left dogma or thinking who sometimes use very masculine or macho-language to describe human and individual things. If women are emulating this or being coerced by it, then they are not being their true selves. Liberalism is a much more feminine ideology, and which I prefer in some ways, but I think that some female-machismo or female-misogynism can also be sometimes very much a part of it.

I saw a programme on Channel 4 recently called Hitler's Women, and historians and others said that Hitler controlled the way his women related to him and other people, because he wanted to give a political and public impression of himself as having a lack of intimacy, in order to uphold his superman and assumed superior male image. He also idealised his mother, demonised some individuals and groups of women in contrast to that, and replaced this lack of intimacy in his personal life with the patriarchal domination of other men, and he forged a "love relationship" between him and collective German women who supported and supposedly idolised him as a far-right political leader.

Many men still try to control the way women relate to themselves and others, in order to create a superior image of themselves as men over and above women, and I think it is both a repulsive and fascistic character trait. I also think that it's a very conservative idea of women, that they are always vulnerable and need protecting by men, and a view that some radical men have about women as well. I like to think that most women - given the chance - are quite capable or protecting and defending themselves; whilst at the same time I try not to be too politically correct about it, and I respect the strength of a woman.

When the pub therapist asked me how I see my "relationship" with alcohol or beer, I said "as a therapist", because then that can mean many different things. Then she said that if I was giving up beer, did this mean that I was giving up the pub therapy she was giving me, and I said wasn't going to give up alcohol entirely, because that would have been extreme, and that I'll just moderate or drink non-alcoholic drinks whilst attending my weekly pub sessions.

If anything is therapeutic, then friendships are therapeutic, sexual love-relationships are therapeutic, and so on, and so on, and so on. If you use the term "therapeutic relationship", it sounds as if you're sort of broadening up the possibilities for explaining relatedness or relationships, but it can also be used to reduce or diminish the uniqueness and humanness of the therapy, and to reduce or diminish the uniqueness and humanness of other genuine and authentic relationships.

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